Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2002 19:59:34 +0000 (GMT)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Antagonism?= <antagonism1-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: AUT: enclosure of geocities


One of the effects of the downturn in IT/new media/etc is that
Yahoo! are trying to make their business generate more money
more quickly. They had to drop their plan to move into porn
almost as soon as they announced it due to the 'public outcry',
but are trying various other means. Previoulsy Yahoo! gave away
free webspace, on the basis that they could sell advertising.
But website advertising has been shown to be ineffective, and in
any case, spending on advertising has decreased in general in
the current economic climate. 

Its been a long time coming but Yahoo! are now trying to force
money out of people with free geocities websites. eg me. I got a
mail last week saying that the antagonism site had been
temporarily shut down as it had exceeded its 2 gigabit per month
bandwidth allowance (as if!), and this week they have removed
FTP access and, like wanna be gangstas, are now offering to sell
it back at a price. One major provider, 'another.com' has
already simply started to charge for a previously free web mail
service.

So two questions.

1 Has there been any comeback to Yahoo! about this? Eg protests
of some sort or anything. (I doubt it but...)

2 Are there any places still offering free webspace that are
likely to remain doing so and provide a good enough service to
make it worth the hassle of moving?

If you're looking for free webspace or free webmail, yahoo! is
probably no longer a good place to look for.

steve

ps. Ignore the Yahoo! advertising that the gits apend to all my
mails.


====Antagonism                         
web: http://www.geocities.com/antagonism1
email: antagonism1-AT-yahoo.com                     
mail: Antagonism, BM Makhno, London WC1N 3XX, UK

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